by Mary E. Cronin | Oct 6, 2023 | Cape Cod, Poetry
Poetry came to life when the very talented music teacher in our Cape Cod elementary school used my poem “Drum” in her exploration of percussion recently. What a delight to read my poem to our K-3 students, to hear children drumming, to listen to them beat out the...
by Mary E. Cronin | Mar 31, 2023 | Cape Cod, Community connections, SCBWI, We Need Diverse Books
At the school where I work, the vast majority of children qualify for free and reduced lunch. A quarter of our K-3 students are English Language Learners, many from Brazil. Most of the children had never met an author, or had a book signed… until author Ana Crespo...
by Mary E. Cronin | Mar 3, 2023 | Cape Cod, Conferences-workshops, Poetry, Teaching
This week I led a professional development session for teachers, “Vitamin P: Boosting the Use of Poetry in the Literacy Block.” For three hours, we played with poetry! We talked about how to infuse poetry across the curriculum, find rich and meaningful poems, and...
by Mary E. Cronin | Dec 16, 2022 | Cape Cod, Poetry
Playing with poetry in the classroom– that’s one of the best parts of my job as a Literacy Coach in an elementary school. Recently, I introduced the poem “Circle of Sun” by Rebecca Kai Dotlich in the first-grade classroom I work in each morning. It’s the...
by Mary E. Cronin | Oct 15, 2022 | Cape Cod, Community connections, SCBWI, Teaching, We Need Diverse Books
When author Ana Crespo made an author visit via Zoom to the school where I work as a Literacy Coach on Cape Cod, the joy in classrooms was palpable. Most children in our K-3 school had never met an author before, and they were excited to meet Ana. Crespo, a native of...
by Mary E. Cronin | Oct 7, 2022 | Cape Cod, Community connections, Poetry
WHAT IS A FRIEND? I am delighted to be a part of a new poetry book for middle graders that answers this question. It’s a collection of poems about all aspects of friendship– getting along, competing, trying out new ventures together. My poem, “Team,” is about a...